Washington – There wasn’t much public fuss when he was born at the National Zoo earlier this year. And most visitors have since wandered upon him by accident.

But come fall, sloth bear Balawat and his parents will star in a new, high-profile “digging” exhibit – the first animals people will see as they stroll through the zoo’s entrance on Connecticut Avenue.

Balawat, known as Bala, was born Jan. 9, exactly six months after the zoo’s popular giant panda cub, Tai Shan, was born. Both are about to get expanded quarters as part of Asia Trail, the $53 million overhaul that opens Oct. 17.

“The panda cub is cuter in photographs, but the sloth bear cub is cuter in person,” keeper Tracey Barnes said.

Barnes predicts that when father Merlin, mother Hana and their first surviving cub debut in a new setting – on prime real estate along the zoo’s main pedestrian thoroughfare, Olmstead Walk – Bala will come into his own.

“He’s going to be a big celebrity,” she said. “Most people just happen across us down here. But once they discover him, they can’t pull themselves away.”

People worldwide know about Tai Shan, now more than a year old.

He’s the zoo’s first surviving giant panda cub, black and white and loved all over. But he’s up a tree napping most of the day, and is to be sent to China after he turns 2.

Bala, by contrast, has a shaggy coat of dark brown fur and a long, narrow nose. He spends much of his day in constant motion – digging, exploring, climbing and trying to catch a ride on his mother’s back.

And he’s going to be around for a while.

When Asia Trail opens, the sloth bears will join other animals indigenous to that part of the world, including giant pandas, red pandas, fishing cats, small-clawed otters and clouded leopards, an elusive species that hasn’t been exhibited at the zoo’s Rock Creek Park complex since 1980.

Sloth bears, considered a vulnerable species, are native to the forests and grasslands of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal.

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